"The Hushle"

[Gondor]

The Foster, Wikner Aircraft Company Limited – Hushle

The Hushle was a development of the Hawker Typhoon which was developed at the companies Eastleigh factory in Southampton. Towards the end of the war there was perceived need for an aircraft to carry out policing duties in the Middle East once the current hostilities had ended. The Hushle was put forward by Foster Wikner as a possible aircraft for these duties.

Designed by the famed Orcadian William Donald MacHinery, but known to his friends as Bill D, MacHinery came up with this simple conversion that took the engine and cooling system, designed for the Hawker Tempest VI, and married them a Hawker Typhoon replacing its Sabre II engine with the Napier Sabre V engine. To the Orcadian MacHinery, neither the names of Typhoon or Tempest appeared fitting to the resultant aircraft, so he used the Orcadian word Hushle instead which he felt was more appropriate and described the word to his English colleagues as “a force of wind that they would barely be able to stand up in”. It is believed that William did not get on well with the locals much.

Trials of the aircraft showed promise with a batch of eight aircraft produced and sent to Egypt for operational evaluation. By this time, early 1949, there had been severe difficulties getting supplies to complete the conversion of low hour Typhoons as now the war was over there was seen to be little need to develop more aircraft even though the Hushle was a conversion rather than a new build.

Arriving in Egypt during late October 1949, the aircraft were immediately painted in the new “desert” camouflage, recently introduced in the area. The Aircraft were issued to 6 Squadron who performed an operational assessment and trial of the aircraft into the following year when they were struck off charge and scrapped due to them being found to be not much better than the Typhoon that it was based on. With the De Havilland Vampire’s starting to replace the aircraft with 6 Squadron the Hushle’s days were numbered almost before they began.





















Details:-

          Base Kit: 1/72 Academy Hawker Typhoon 1b
Additional Parts: Freightdog Hawker Typhoon Mk VI conversion set
              Paint: Xtracolor, Humbrol and Tamiya
            Decals: Freightdog "Brits Abroad Pt2" and Modeldecal

Now I bet some of you are running the 1975 Disco hit "The Hustle" through your heads right about now 

Gondor

[NARSES2]

I like that and the "Palestine" camouflage colours suit her 

[zenrat]

...Now I bet some of you are running the 1975 Disco hit "The Hustle" through your heads right about now  

Gondor

I wasn't.  But I am now you bar steward.

Good job.

[Gondor]

An extra piece of information for anyone reading the back story. Two things are completely made up and two others are altered.

The made up items are easy. The engineers name and the aircraft. The altered items are the squadron markings have been altered as I could not put the flying can opener motif where it was supposed to go and the length of time that the manufacturer was operating was "adjusted" to suit the story, everything else is real. 

Gondor

[kitnut617]

Could you tell me why there's two radiators though, can't figure that one out at the moment ---

[Gondor]

Could you tell me why there's two radiators though, can't figure that one out at the moment ---

The leading edge radiators are part of the Tempest VI conversion set along with the filter between the undercarriage doors. The engine used was different to that installed in the Typhoon and the early Tempests and is the basis for the build along with the option of using the colour scheme which was used on Tempest VI's.

Hope that helps

Gondor

[DogfighterZen]

Looks great!

[kitnut617]

Could you tell me why there's two radiators though, can't figure that one out at the moment ---

The leading edge radiators are part of the Tempest VI conversion set along with the filter between the undercarriage doors. The engine used was different to that installed in the Typhoon and the early Tempests and is the basis for the build along with the option of using the colour scheme which was used on Tempest VI's.

Hope that helps

Gondor

Thanks, I miss-read Mk.VI as MK.V (teach me to put my readers on), now I understand exactly, Mk.VI radiator didn't have the oil cooler built in it as the earlier versions of Sabre radiator did.

[Gondor]

Could you tell me why there's two radiators though, can't figure that one out at the moment ---

The leading edge radiators are part of the Tempest VI conversion set along with the filter between the undercarriage doors. The engine used was different to that installed in the Typhoon and the early Tempests and is the basis for the build along with the option of using the colour scheme which was used on Tempest VI's.

Hope that helps

Gondor

Thanks, I miss-read Mk.VI as MK.V (teach me to put my readers on), now I understand exactly, Mk.VI radiator didn't have the oil cooler built in it as the earlier versions of Sabre radiator did.

Sort of makes it a semi tropical Typhoon

Gondor

[kitnut617]

Could you tell me why there's two radiators though, can't figure that one out at the moment ---

The leading edge radiators are part of the Tempest VI conversion set along with the filter between the undercarriage doors. The engine used was different to that installed in the Typhoon and the early Tempests and is the basis for the build along with the option of using the colour scheme which was used on Tempest VI's.

Hope that helps

Gondor

Thanks, I miss-read Mk.VI as MK.V (teach me to put my readers on), now I understand exactly, Mk.VI radiator didn't have the oil cooler built in it as the earlier versions of Sabre radiator did.

Sort of makes it a semi tropical Typhoon

Gondor

More like a purpose-built tropical Typhoon   , the Tempest Mk.VI was originally ear-marked for the Far East so needed a bigger radiator for the extra power the engine put out, oil cooler in the leading edge was a way around it.

As an aside, have you ever wondered why the Tempest Mk.II & Mk.VI and the Fury prototypes had the oil cooler mounted in the starboard wing, whereas the Sea Fury had it mounted in the port wing, I've not been able to find out why, none of the reference books I have mention the swap around.

[Gondor]

Could you tell me why there's two radiators though, can't figure that one out at the moment ---

The leading edge radiators are part of the Tempest VI conversion set along with the filter between the undercarriage doors. The engine used was different to that installed in the Typhoon and the early Tempests and is the basis for the build along with the option of using the colour scheme which was used on Tempest VI's.

Hope that helps

Gondor

Thanks, I miss-read Mk.VI as MK.V (teach me to put my readers on), now I understand exactly, Mk.VI radiator didn't have the oil cooler built in it as the earlier versions of Sabre radiator did.

Sort of makes it a semi tropical Typhoon

Gondor

More like a purpose-built tropical Typhoon    , the Tempest Mk.VI was originally ear-marked for the Far East so needed a bigger radiator for the extra power the engine put out, oil cooler in the leading edge was a way around it.

Reasonable, but the Orcadians would not have a word for a Tropical Typhoon

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

As an aside, have you ever wondered why the Tempest Mk.II & Mk.VI and the Fury prototypes had the oil cooler mounted in the starboard wing, whereas the Sea Fury had it mounted in the port wing, I've not been able to find out why, none of the reference books I have mention the swap around.

Someone in the Kingston Drawing Office probably got the Sea Fury drawings printed left to right and they couldn't be bothered to correct it later once the tooling had been started. 

[NARSES2]

As an aside, have you ever wondered why the Tempest Mk.II & Mk.VI and the Fury prototypes had the oil cooler mounted in the starboard wing, whereas the Sea Fury had it mounted in the port wing, I've not been able to find out why, none of the reference books I have mention the swap around.

Senior service being different ? Seriously probably a screw up as Kit says

[Captain Canada]

Nice one. I really like the look of that, and it's something I'm not familiar with so it's great to see. And now I want one  Love the camo colours and markings combo !